Dion - Wonder Where I'm Bound

All Music Guide

Columbia failed to release a Dion LP in 1964-1966, although he cut more than enough material for the label during that time to generate one. Just months after Dion had commercially returned from the dead with his smash "Abraham, Martin John," Columbia patched together this assortment of odds and ends from the vaults, most of it apparently selected with an eye toward folk-rock material. Although the packaging was substandard, this is actually a pretty good collection of mid-'60s cuts that reveal (along with others that have surfaced on some other anthologies) that Dion was among the earlier significant artists to create interesting folk-rock. It would have done much more to bolster his reputation had it been issued in 1965 or 1966. Nonetheless, it contains its share of good performances, like covers of Tom Paxton's "I Can't Help but Wonder Where I'm Bound" (heard here in a version with strings, unlike the stringless one on the compilation The Road I'm On: A Retrospective), and Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," and "Farewell." Dion himself wrote or co-wrote "Knowing I Won't Go Back There," "Now," and "Wake up Baby," which are all decent, tuneful folk-rockers with characteristic early New York folk-rock production from early Dylan producer Tom Wilson. The cover of Woody Guthrie's "900 Miles" is quality acoustic folk-blues, and Dion also proves himself a fine white bluesman on "Southern Train" and "The Seventh Son," taking a respectable stab at a Mose Allison-styled arrangement of the blues standard "Baby, Please Don't Go." On the other hand, the doo wop classic ,"A Sunday Kind of Love," sounds pretty misplaced here. This is well worth picking up, though, particularly as four of the songs ("Now," "Southern Train," "Wake up Baby," and "Farewell") don't appear on the two CD reissues of Dion's Columbia material: The Road I'm On: A Retrospective and Bronx Blues: The Columbia Recordings (1962-1965).

- Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide